North Kitsap grads go Hollywood
by Michael C. More

When Erich Cannon and Nathan Lee embarked on their first feature-film project together, they might well have been excused for setting it in the North Kitsap environs where they both grew up.

Instead, they found their locations — and the title of the resulting film — on Google.

“We fell in love with the look of the town,” said Lee, the film’s director and co-writer, of little Fall City, the Snoqualmie Valley village that jumped out at both of them from the Internet. “We had been Googling images, looking at small towns in Washington. Neither of us had ever actually been there.”

Once Lee saw the town in the flesh — as part of a honeymoon tour of Northwest locations with his wife, Tara (a co-producer of the film who Lee credited with also being a “big part” of the casting process) — the deal was done.

“We agreed it was just perfect,” said Cannon, who co-wrote and produced. “It matched our script, it matched our story. And the name made for a pretty good title.”

Cannon and Lee have known each other since their junior high days, when they lived down the street from each other and began collaborating on a cable access show for Bremerton Kitsap Access Television while at Poulsbo Junior High.

“It strangely became somewhat popular with the students, and then worked its way outward to the public,” Cannon said of their show. They continued to work together upon their move to North Kitsap High School.

“We were both in high school drama, too,” Cannon said. “I was more into acting, and Nathan was more into the tech side of it.”

Lee stayed in theater after high school before jumping into various film and TV projects around 2006.

“I started with small positions on big movies, then transitioned into working in bigger roles on smaller movies,” Lee said. He also has five Emmy awards to show for his TV work….

by Beth Skwarecki

Young Houdini shows how detached he is!

You’ll never make everybody happy—and the people that aren’t happy are liable to tell you why. Criticism is part of the price of being human. But even though we know that, it’s hard to deal when the negative stuff starts rolling in. Share an opinion on the internet—or just report some inconvenient facts (ask me how I know)—and you may have hordes of people telling you what a bad person you are. Here’s how to stop criticism from ruining your day.

Accept That It Will Happen

The only way to totally avoid criticism is to simply not let anybody find out that you exist. As soon as you start putting your face, name, writing, or actions out into the world, people will have opinions about you. Nobody, no matter how wildly successful, is universally beloved. Haters gonna hate.

When you think about it that way, getting criticism is a sign that you’re doing something right. You’re putting your work out in public. When I get one of those cringey flashback memories of a time I said or did something stupid, I like to tell myself, I was brave. Maybe I fucked up, but at least I was trying.

Pay Attention to Who Is Giving the Criticism

Do you care about the opinion of the person who’s giving the criticism? If they’re your boss, or your trustworthy friend, that’s different than if they’re just some rando who’s dashing off a mean tweet and didn’t know you existed until 30 seconds before that.

Separate Facts From Interpretation

Even well-meaning criticism has layers of human fallibility between the actual problem and the words or thoughts that come back to you. The other person interprets what you’ve done and they react in their own way; you hear their words and make your own assumptions.

Criticism hurts. Especially public criticism. But let’s be frank here, shall we? Public criticism is part of the writer’s life. Bad reviews happen all the time, and learning how to survive the pain is part of the game.

Here are a few tips on how to deal constructively with every writer’s nightmare – critics who give us bad, bad, really bad reviews:

by Pamela Jane

You know the feeling—the shock, the shattering pain, the sick sensation in the pit of your stomach. A reviewer has just demolished your book and you feel stunned, attacked, and ashamed.

Make no mistake; you have just been very publicly humiliated.

“Newspapers last forever! I will regret this forever!” the famous movie star, Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) cries in Notting Hill when the paparazzi snap photos of her and William Thacker, half-dressed. Thacker (Hugh Grant) responds by asking her for a “normal amount of perspective.”

But those were newspapers. One can imagine them yellowing, burning or, as Thacker suggests, lining waste paper bins.

But the cloud really is forever; the cloud is eternal.

Recently, after a blistering review of his new novel, a friend sent me an email with the subject line “I’m going to Jump off a bridge.” I knew exactly how he felt. (I also knew he was not going to jump off a bridge.) But the incident brought back the pain of a bad review I received years ago, words that seared into me like fire.

t was my second children’s novel for Houghton Mifflin; my first book with them had sold well and received sterling reviews Now my new book was being destroyed by small, sharp stones hurled by a faceless librarian hiding in a cubby hole (I imagined). She described my main character, who I had imbued with my own heart and soul, as “extreme and poorly characterized.” As far as she was concerned, the book was better suited for – well, lining trash cans.

Over thirty books and dozens of published essays later, I have gained a normal amount of perspective regarding reviews, both good and bad. And, to think, it only took thirty-five years!

Below are five tough tips for surviving the hurt, anger, and humiliation generated by a rotten review.

Now this is a truly interesting – insightful even – article. Read this one closely, kids. It’s your futures that are on the line:

by Lucy V Hay

Successful Writers

Sometimes, we meet/discover a writer who is super successful. We think they must have been super lucky, too. Right place, right time and all that. If only we were so lucky!

But what if I told you they’re super successful BECAUSE they failed … A LOT. Seems like an oxymoron, right? Except it isn’t. Many amazing writers are ‘successful failures’.

The above quote is from J K Rowling’s Harvard Commencement Speech, The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination. Being as successful as she is, it’s hard to think of her as a writer who failed. But she did and so have countless other success stories.

Failure Is Not Fatal

Maya Angelou is another amazing writer. She came up against huge obstacles in her life, yet she saw the value of failure. Every time life smacked her down, this courageous woman got right back up. Does failing the most equate with learning the most? Maybe.

I think the key to getting past failure is this … None of us know how long the thorny path is. It could take two years, five years or ten years to become successful. Even then, the thorns are still there … Except now they’re entwined with ‘success flowers’ and the path is a nicer walk!

The Value Of Mentors, Allies & Moral Support

You don’t HAVE to have a mentor, but there’s a reason they play such a big part in The Hero’s Journey. Mentors can be helpers and facilitators in writers’ journeys….

Or, to put the headline another way: Networking for Writers & Others of Our, um, Ilk. Yeah, that’s it. We’re all ilkmates under the skin, amIright?

How to Network When In-Person Contact Stresses You Out
by Aimee Lutkin

Talking to strangers in a crowded room where everyone wants something from each other is a true nightmare, and at times it’s the most direct path to career development. But there is another way to network—from behind a computer screen.

Your network encompasses many acquaintances and former co-workers, and most of them are not going to be your best friends, as Karen Wickre explains in an article for Ideas.Ted.com. Wickre had a long career at Google, and went on to work as the editorial director of Twitter, so as you can imagine she has a pretty huge list of people she stays in touch with. That means cultivating an interest in people you’re not necessarily close to, but want to remain friendly with. This is how she does it.

Remember Everyone Has To Ask For Help

A lot of people don’t maintain their networks because they see themselves as an island. They’ll never ask for help. Never!! But this is an untenable position; everyone needs help sometimes, and reminding yourself of that early is good. It means you’ll actually have the right people in your life when the time comes. Think of creating and growing your network as a part of your job description, rather than an unnecessary insurance policy….